Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs was Originally Posted on July 9, 2012 by lavarock

In 1991 there was a great TV show called “Dinosaurs”. Consider it a cross between “The Honeymooners” (1950’s Jackie Gleason show) and “The Flintstones”. The Dinosaurs were an animatronics stone-age working-class family created by Jim Henson for Disney.

Earl, the father worked for a company called “WESAYSO” and does many bad things to the inhabitants and environment because, as the name implies, we say so.

The company acts not unlike our current government here in America. Because they make the rules, they can decide that things are legal, when ordinarily they would not be.

Take the “Do Not Call List”. It was designed so that we poor telephone owners could place our number on a grand list that telemarketers could check. If our number appears, do not call or risk massive fines. Well, as most of us know, that list did not stop all calls. In fact, our government even added a little “gotcha” in that THEY, the politicians do not have to abide by the list. It is impossible for you NOT to receive political telephone calls, because “we say so”. The politicians used te idea that if they were supposed to represent us, they could not do that if they could not reach out and “touch us”. I guess they ignored the fact that people with telephone have the ability to call OUT to the politicians if they want. Most of us do not want to call them nor be called BY them. But they said so, and so it goes. You would think that in a country built on freedom of speech, that the public should also have the freedom not to listen, if so desired.

So what else has the government decided to make legalm when otherwise it would not be?

Let’s say you are in real estate. Someone wants to buy a home and gives a down payment or a closing fee. Or suppose you rent out rooms and take a deposit for security. That money (at least in the first example) is supposed to be placed in an escrow account, in that persons name. In most cases it may even get interest during that time. It is not supposed to be used for other purposes and certainly not to be lent or used by other people. That would be “conversion”.

Escrow: Escrow generally refers to money held by a third-party on behalf of transacting parties. It is best known in the United States in the context of real estate (specifically in mortgages where the mortgage company establishes an escrow account to pay property tax and insurance during the term of the mortgage). Escrow is an account separate from the mortgage account where deposit of funds occurs for payment of certain conditions that apply to the mortgage, usually property taxes and insurance. The escrow agent has the duty to properly account for the escrow funds and ensure that usage of funds is explicitly for the purpose intended.

So escrow accounts are used to hold money until a certain set of agreed upon circumstances are met. It could be asm simple as two people betting each other and letting a third party hold the money. That third person cannot go off and buy dinner with the money or use it for something else.

Again to Wikipedia: Conversion (law), conversion by taking a chattel out of the possession of another with the intent of exercising a permanent or temporary dominion over it, despite the owner’s entitlement to use it at all.

Criminal conversion, exerting unauthorised use or control of someone else’s property

Equitable conversion, A change in the nature of property so that real property is treated as personal property, or vice versa, in certain circumstances

So with those definitions, if I am holding money for someone and in the meantime, use that to pay my own salary, or use it to fix the roof on the house, that would be conversion, even if I do say I’ll pay it back later. The whole idea of an escrow account is that the money is set aside, not used for any other purpose and available to the original party as it was deposited.

Let’s talk about a Ponzi Scheme. A Ponzi Scheme is a scam whereby you promise someone a rate of return on their money so they will deposit money in the scheme. As others pay into the scheme, that money is payed out to the initial investors as a profit. Thus you need more and more people in the scheme to make the payouts work. If there is no profit offered or there is an escrow account for each person where the money lay idle, there would be no way that each individual would not get his money out and there is no way that the balance of funds in the scheme would be insufficient to pay everyone.

I am not the only one who is concerned when I try to understand Social Security. I am forced to pay into it. The money is not put in an escrow account. The funds are used for whatever the government want to, and they keep talking about the whole fund collapsing and not being able to pay everyone.

There is no bank account with my name on it and that money tucked inside. There is no desk drawer with a packet of money set aside with a wrapper around it and my name. What there is, is a ledger showing what I paid in and what they say they will pay out. Those numbers are not cast in concrete and our government officials can change that payout any time they want.

The money I paid in has been used. They paid salaries, they fought wars with it, they dumped my money in the “general fund” and used it for whatever they wanted.

There are those who say, “but they have to do that to run the country”. No, that is the taxing part of our lives. They collect taxes to run things. The problem is, when they come up with a new tax to pay for something, the public may rise up and disagree. Since the government already has our money from a forced “tax”, ie Social Security funds, they just filter them into the general fund and do with them as they will.

Keep in mind that Congress is the only entity in the country which can vote itself a raise and ignore whether they have been productive or deserving of it.

I am not thrilled with a large government. Try to name a government agency that is efficient. It is not easy to do.

By definition, our Congressional leaders are lawmakers who make the laws. However, that also allows them to make many laws that define how they conduct themselves.

They work 3 days a week and travel back home often to “speak with constituants”. Isn’t that why they excluded themselves from the Do Not Call List, so they could call us? Then why travel back home to seek us out? Perhaps to talk to the people who cannot afford a telephone.

So in about a week I will apply for my Social Security benefits. I wish the money could have been invested and had grown at a fast rate. Alas, I don’t make the rules (or the laws).

I don’t work for the government, so I don’t have a special retirement account like they have. I could not retire after working a mere 20 years, regardless of my age. I don’t have a special medical plan I voted myself. When I was working, mmy company did not pay me to commute to and from home.

But then again, I can say I survived something that our leaders can only dream about!